At a meeting last night between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and head of the ultra-Orthodox parties United Torah Judaism and Shas, the following subjects were agreed:
A law will be passed to preserve the status-quo throughout the country with only grocery stores in Tel Aviv allowed to remain open on Saturdays.
Railway traffic during the week will not be harmed (by not performing vital infrastructure work on Saturdays).
Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Haim Katz, charged with solving the railway maintenance dispute, will speed up efforts to find a formula, which takes into account safety, Jewish tradition, employees' welfare and the harm to the public space.
The status quo on Saturday soccer will remain.
A new law allowing a deputy minister to govern a ministry will be enacted.
Previously, in return for remaining in the governing coalition, United Torah Judaism had been demanding that the Government Companies Law be amended to ban government companies from operating on the Sabbath, except for actions essential for state security or saving lives, sources inform "Globes." Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman resigned after the rabbi who leads the Gur hassidic group, a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Sages), ruled that he could not be a government minister if railway work was conducted on the Sabbath. Litzman's resignation will take effect in 48 hours.
Sources inform "Globes" that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considered Thursday night going to the Gur rabbi's home in order to persuade him to stop Litzman from resigning. Netanyahu's advisors feared that this would be interpreted as surrender, while another advisor explained that the Gur rabbi in any cases refused to meet people who do not observe the Sabbath, so the idea was discarded. The Likud is worried about harsh responses from the public to United Torah Judaism's demands, and is trying to put all the demands into a single legislative basket that can be passed together in the coming weeks. The Likud is aware that any surrender to pressure from the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties and imposition of additional Sabbath restrictions is likely to strengthen the power of the political parties outside the coalition, especially Yesh Atid.
Every year, 950 requests for approval of work on the Sabbath are submitted to the Ministry of Economy and Industry, of which the ministry approves 900. 4,500 separate permits for working on the Sabbath have been issued over the past five years. These permits were issued when either MK Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home Party or Aryeh Deri (Shas), both of whom are religiously observant, were successively Minister of Economy and Industry, according to responses by the Ministry of Economy and Industry to an enquiry under the Freedom of Information Law submitted by the Hatzlacha movement, led by Advocate Elad Man. Furthermore, the employment permits are regularly published on the Ministry of Economy and Industry website, which belongs to the state, and also operates on the Sabbath.
Under the Basic Law: The Government, when a minister resigns from the government, the government minister returns to the prime minister. At a meeting of the Likud ministers, Netanyahu announced today that the health portfolio would stay with him for the moment. "I regret Minister Yaakov Litzman's decision to resign from the government," Netanyahu said at the meeting. "He is an excellent minister of health, and did much for the health of Israelis. The Sabbath is important to us, and so are the needs of all Israelis, including, of course, the need for safe and continuous transportation. I believe that we will find a wise solution."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on November 27, 2017
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